Murder - prompt borrowed from mind_the_muse (Reply)

He doesn't, really, think about it. Not anymore. Some part of him figures he probably would go actually crazy if he thought too hard about it so he just...doesn't. He figures most of them don't. It is, after all, a kind of insanity, what they were doing, wasn't it? These weren't droids he was fighting, not as a matter of course, even if it was easy to imagine that when he was in the cockpit of a fighter, firing on someone who was also in the cockpit of a fighter. Or in a turbolaser turret. Or on the bridge of a ship. Easy to pretend it wasn't another flesh-and-blood person he was shooting for. Aim to kill. Sure, it was life or death but... he'd chosen this life, hadn't he? Volunteered. And he couldn't say he didn't know what he was signing himself for, even if he didn't really understand the magnitude of it at the time. He made his living from the death of others.

It was a handy thing, too, he'd never have to forget. Not when his kill count was emblazoned on his X-wing's fuselage, just under the cockpit, for the galaxy at large to see. He didn't forget, but he tried not to think about it, either.

He'd have rather forgotten about the ones that weren't counted. The deaths that had come from his own hands directly. The stinking smell of charred flesh, smoking wounds inflicted by his blaster. The sound of bones cracking from kick or a punch. The feel of a blade in his hand, ready to kill anyone who got in his way.

Those weren't so easy to pretend about. Those stayed with him. And there wasn't even a pretty explosion to focus on.

It bothered him, what he'd done. Sure, he knew in his head that it was for a Cause and therefore Just and Right. Or something like that, anyway. Sure, he knew they were the enemy, they'd just as soon have killed him or worse. It was what he was trained to do.

It was all he could do.

As much as he tried not to think about what he was, he was even more afraid of thinking about what he'd do when this war was over.